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Sweet Amongst the Bitter

Judges 14:5 - 9 Samson went down to Timnah together with his father and mother. As they approached the vineyards of Timnah, suddenly a lion came roaring toward him. The Spirit of the LORD came upon him in power so that he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as he might have torn a young goat. But he told neither his father nor his mother what he had done. Then he went down and talked with the woman, and he liked her. Sometime later, when he went back to marry her, he turned aside to look at the lion's carcass. In it was a swarm of bees and some honey, which he scooped out with his hands and ate as he went along.

There are times in our lives when we feel under pressure or attacked. As with Samson these attacks can come from any area and at any stage of life…home, work, spiritual, financial…and they often surprise us. I’ve also noticed that it matters who we turn to in the midst of these attacks. If we turn to God and His strength and power, there is a certain humbling of self and reliance on Him and this provides greater trust, peace and faith in Him. But if we continually rely on ourselves, we tend to become hardened…cynical. Dog eat dog and survival of the fittest becomes our rule…It doesn’t take a sociology professor to see evidence of this in society today.

Sampson’s trust was in the Lord and because it was, God gave him the power to overcome the lion’s attack. God will do the same for you and I…His promise to do so is repeated again and again throughout His Word. (Psalms 27:1, Psalms 34:17, Psalms 46:1, Psalms 56:11, Psalms 138:7, Isaiah 26:3, Isaiah 41:10, Isaiah 43:2, John 14:1, John 14:27, Romans 8:28, 1 Corinthians 10:13, Philippians 4:7, 2 Timothy 1:7, 1 Peter 5:7).

Now, pay close attention here. Sometimes the battle is hard and they leave deep and lasting scars that we really don’t want to relive or even think about. Later in Sampson’s story, he revisited the site of his battle with the lion. Within the carcass of the dead lion he found honey…sweet, energy restoring honey. I believe in the ‘carcass’ of every battle we’ve faced…every hardship we’ve endured…every scar we’ve obtained, there is a store of ‘honey’. Sometimes it’s hard to see at first and maybe God needs to draw us back to the site to help us realize that this ‘honey’ has helped us in our walk, or perhaps has positioned us to do God’s work in ways we never knew or expected or maybe it was there just to show us God’s majesty…in any case, it does show that God has a blessing for us in ANY circumstance.

Sweetness out of the bitterness of battle…only God can do something like that…amazing!

(this was expounded on after I heard someone share the story in Church this past Sunday)
~ V